Plastics products are locally electrolessly plated generally by the following methods.
(a) A tape prepared by coating a base sheet of polyester or the like with an adhesive is affixed to the portion of the product not to be plated ("hereinafter referred to as a "nonplating portion"), the product is then electrolessly plated, and the tape is thereafter removed.
(b) A masking agent comprising a polyvinyl chloride sol is applied to the nonplating portion of the product, followed by electroless plating and removal of the masking coating.
(c) The method comprising electrolessly plating the product in its entirety, coating the desired plated portion with a resist and removing the plating from the nonplating portion by dissolving.
However, these methods have the problem of being low in efficiency and permitting the coating to remain to impair the precision or appearance of the resulting product and lower the commercial value of the product. Furthermore, these methods are not always applicable to articles of complex configuration since the coating is difficult to remove completely.